


Run, River Boy

by lukielarry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous, Anal Sex, Cute, Drugs, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Relationship(s), Smut, Triggers, past of abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5960350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukielarry/pseuds/lukielarry





	Run, River Boy

Louis removed his shoes, one foot at a time, tucking his toes into each other and cracking them before pulling off the sock that encased it. He stuffed the discarded garments into his Adidas bag and began his journey through hanging leaves and limbs, towards the river.

There was barely enough light to see the trees around him, but he did not need the light to guide him. He knew these woods. The feeling of dirt between his toes was more sublime than being kissed in the sun. A feeling he wouldn't soon substitute for anything. With every step he grew quicker, breaking into a jog, and then a run, and then a sprint. His feet carried him nimbly through the forest. He wasn't sure if he should call it that, the small patch of trees and brush beside his dorms that lead to the banks of a river--of a name he could not pronounce--did not stretch more than an acre around. The fog around him splitting apart and sealing as he sliced through it at inhuman speeds.  
Louis came to run every morning. He'd start before the sun, it's earliest rays greeting him at the river and lighting his way back home. Each day he'd trek through grand oaks and massive maples toward his little safe haven, avoiding rocks and roots upon the ground awaiting a naked foot to impale. Louis' only scars came from internal battles he'd lost and external wars that he'd won. Not a single scrape to adorn his soft feet.  
He'd come home and rinse the dirt from them in the sink and start fresh the next day. But today Louis had planned to stay out. He would not return until late that evening with blackened soles. He'd charged up his phone and turned it on airplane mode, started a playlist before he'd left the dull dormitory. Today's run would cost him daylight.

.........

When his toes had finally reached the bank of the river, and the cool water had seeped through the mud and pooled around them, it had barely struck five. The foggy air breathing just thinner than it had when the small boy had started. His nimble hand pulled up the sleeve of his running jacket to check the watch that lay on his delicate wrist. He then squinted up at the sky, taking in a breath before turning to his left. Before him lay a widened path, matted down by his bare feet from the months prior. When he had first discovered this place, there was no path at all. Only small openings between trunks and branches and leaves. He remembered, on his first run, he had tugged stray branches and vines out of his way, tossing them to the side as he sped through. He stared down the pathway, hesitating to begin. At the curve of the entry Louis' hands began to sweat as another boy passed through the mist. His massive curls tucked behind a ragged old bandana, stained with years of sweat and dirt. His wide shoulders were dressed with a dark shirt, drenched with perspiration. Upon his legs hung a loose pair of joggers, one large hand tucked into a pocket and the other swiping at a phone screen, earbuds dangling from his ears. Louis could not see his face as the boy entered the path from one side of the trees, crossing over the padded leaves to the other. The tattoos that glazed his arm made him question the stranger.

Slowly, Louis encroached upon the now empty pathway, his instincts telling him to withdraw and take the less traveled route, but his feet disobeying. Closer and closer he strode upon the now empty path. Past the semi-circle of stones (set almost intentionally by an unknown people creating a small meeting space), across the wide opening of the wood, shaded by the trees above him. Louis feet dug further into the dirt before he stepped even further, slowly gaining speed into the path. He could not see more than forty feet in front of him and so he was cautious, watching the trees for the tall body, avoiding an unwanted, shoeless encounter with the stranger. His eyes were so busy, bolting from tree to tree, left to right, back and forth. Every branch blurring as he sped around the left shift. Louis foot ripped something from the earth. He stumbled a little, but regained his footing as he hastened on. Trees were no longer clear images but brown and green streaks beside him as he closed his eyes for a brief inhale. He could smell the earth and the worms and the birds. He could feel the world around him, just as it felt him, leaving footprints.  
Behind him, somewhere to his right, a shadow in the fog caught his gaze and he tripped again. This time the earth did not allow him to continue on and he tumbled forward, landing on his knees and slamming his face into a soft grey material. The most unlikely of bushes.

"OOF!" Louis' nose found something stiff and non-earth-like and his eyes shot open. 

Amidst his falling, the strange boy Louis had attempted to avoid had somehow managed to park himself in the center of the pathway, the same luminous phone glowing in his hand. Only this time Louis had plowed his face into the boy's crotch, buckling him over in pain. He tried to breathe steadily, but the blow to the core had knocked the wind clean out of him.  
Louis got up to his feet, feeling the heat rising beneath his cheeks, boiling and turning him the most radiant shade of magenta. No other embarrassment had ever been so keenly shaken upon him. Louis had no words to say to the strange boy as he took in his appearance. 

"Good shot, mate." The stranger finally unbent himself in attempt to stand taller as he heaved for air. A hand rested on his toned chest. He towered at least five inches above Louis' slick hair. He hadn't noticed before, but the man's pecs were outlined in sweat beneath the black cotton. 

"I'm so sorry, I tripped over something and I tumbled and I, I...I...I'm sorry." Louis tumbled word after word, muttering muffled phrases of sorrow to the attractive stranger. Yet, to his surprise, he looked unfazed. 

"No worries. " He coughed and adjusted his discomfort with the palm of his left hand. "Not like I haven't taken a face to the groin before." 

If Louis' face weren't red before, his cheeks would be a blazing crimson now with utmost embarrassment. Aside from being slightly attracted to the stranger, Louis was curious about him. Why was he out here? Why had Louis never seen him on a run before? Every day, at the same time, Louis ran the course twice, never once running into, past, or alongside any other body, let alone this muscular, inked one.

Louis noticed the boy stand a little straighter when he became conscious of how heavily he was staring. The boy smirked. "I'll see you around, Louis." 

And just as mysteriously as he appeared, the stranger was gone. 

..........

His dirty feet left muddy marks as he strode, slowly, into the showers. Louis had returned in time to see the sun fall from his dorm room windows. Maria Hall had never seemed so strange as it did in the natural light. Louis only recognized it in the dark, lit only by the wall fixtures after every door. He was too confused to continue his run. He'd cut it short by three hours, he'd been thinking of that boy. Too much thinking to run. As he scrubbed the pads of his feet in the water, Louis could not understand why the stranger knew him. He was not the head of any club, nor chairman of any association. He'd not so much as gotten his name in the University paper. Louis was not known to the school, and he liked it that way. He did not have a roommate, nor did his neighbors care to speak to him. He was happy being the quiet boy in room 318. 

He began to think of all the possible places he could have met this stranger. Yet, it did not seem as though he was one. What was this boy's name? Did they go to college together? 

Louis felt as though he'd never forget a face like his. The aura around him seemed so ethereal, so untouched. Sharp pains shot their way up his leg, he had scrubbed raw, thinking of this boy. He had no idea if he'd ever see him again, but a lot of him wished, hoped, prayed that he would. Harry watched the scenery from his window, viewing from his third floor peak. Dusk had begun to fall and Maria Hall looked as beautiful as he’d ever seen it. The dormitory was stuffy. Not warm, but humid enough for Harry to want a shower. His upper arms stuck to his sides like they’d been sculpted there, permanent as marble. He felt as though he’d been sweating for hours, still sitting in his drenched clothing from before, though his run this morning had been short lived after his run-in with Louis. Harry hadn’t seen him in weeks. He was shocked Louis even left his dorm room at all. Louis was never the type to go out, or socialize, or do anything really. Not that Harry would know much. The two had never so much as smiled at each other before today. Louis did not know Harry. There were no wires for the two boys to cross. Louis was a journalism major, studying the integrity of a voice in writing, and Harry was a filmmaker, putting his own into a script, yet the two did not share a single class. Harry remembered his freshman year in university, carrying his camera from corner to corner of campus, recording anything and everything he could, grasping at the world’s hands for artistic motivation; a muse. He was missing the passion. He tried hiking, yoga, biking, any and every sport you could name, all the things people claimed to receive inspiration from and turned up with nothing but uncomfortable sweats and bruised shins. But when Harry found the paths in the Maria Woods, the small pocket of trees just south of the dorms, there was something that drew him in. Some pre-existing force that magnetized him through the greenery, over the padded leaves and past the cracked branches. He was following something, someone. Dragging his toes through heavy leaves and dirt. He didn’t seem to care about his stained Nikes.


End file.
